Bojack,
You're being unfair to Weston. Slumlord is a bit much. I lived in one of the those APM(management company that he owns) specials near 28th and Ankeny when the wife and I first moved to Portland. The rent was cheap and if there was ever a problem it would be fixed pretty quickly.

can you even call yourself a portlander if you haven't lived in an APM apartment? whoops, that excludes me.

do significant others count?

I have found APM apartments to be good havens for the recently divorced, but my experience with maintenance and repair was not so great. Had an office in an APM building also. Heck, I think APM manages half the real estate in Portland.

Slumlord is a fun word! As much as the witty banter on here can be entertaining, there's a certain insult placed on people who actually live in slum conditions when you label a Weston's projects as such. Which is, like, not that funny. Unless you mean "from here in Irvington, all apartments look like slumlord housing to me."

Field burning may save a few thou for a few farmers, but it also saves about 5 passes over a field with the heavy equipment burning a good amount of diesel.

The constant plowing and turning of the soil break it down and make it need more additives to grow anything and more apt to blow away - remember the 'dust bowl'. Spraying poisonous herbisides and pestisides are also eliminated or at least sharply curtailed when the fields are burnt.

Controlled burning of fields and forests has been practiced since our First Citizens roamed the continent. Now we can't see past a few days of smoke in the valley to see the good results of the burning/no till practice.

I'm not a farmer, but I know a few. Some burn, some spray. I'd much rather be downwind of the smoke than the spray.

Hey, how about Wheels talking about the pain of having a shared checking account with the city on UR? Did he say Wapato??

Unless you mean "from here in Irvington, all apartments look like slumlord housing to me."

I lived next door to one of Weston's apartment buildings on SE 27th Avenue for two years. It was without a doubt the absolute worst neighbor I have ever had in 53 years on this planet, including 18 years in Newark, N.J. The manager was a jerk to deal with, the tenants hated the place and each other, the cops were there every other week, there were people screaming curses at each other in the street, all-day barking dogs, the list went on and on.

It was a slum, by anyone's definition. And so we sold our nice house and moved rather than live next to it.

And you should see the photos of the beautiful old home that he knocked down to build that garbage. It would break your heart.

Bojack: Its "tuchis" gg

I don't know bupkiss about tuchis.

I've lived in far worse "field burning" valleys and never found it to be that troublesome (and yes, I realize it's worse for asthmatics or those with COPD).

It's much worse to live near a pig farm, feedlot, or rendering plant. Even the old leather glove factory in Sherwood smelled much worse than burning grass.

Fire is part of nature: wildfires produce a much larger volume of smoke and pollutants than grass farmers.

This thread got started with the streetcar, which got me thinking. I kind of like the streetcar, but I never ride it because it's too slow. In fact, I hardly ever ride MAX anymore, or take the bus and I have yet to do the tram. From where I'm at in SE Portland, all of these modes are too slow compared to riding my bike. (Well, the tram to Pill Hill could be faster on the way up, though not on the way down).

In fact, most places inside of 60th, I can get there faster by bike than by car.

We have a lot of bicyclists in Portland, but it may be starting to top out because the remaining people may have more serious reservations about biking. Top among these reservations are safety and our wet weather nearly half the year.

So here's my idea: instead of spending millions of dollars on streetcars, light rail and other fixed modes of transit, why not build COVERED BIKEWAYS on paths separated from the regular streets (same as the path a MAX line would take, or segregated lane on a street where a streetcar would run). Sure, this would cost some serious money, but not nearly as much as laying track, buying rail vehicles and operating them at a loss.

The condo developers still could build along these bike freeways and even offer some pretty inexpensive bike amenities at each condo.

When I moved to Eugene in 1972, driving cross country from NYC, I'll never forget turning south at Portland for the first time travelling down the Willamette Valley...and half of it seemed on fire.

There were days when the wind changed and you couldn't see five feet in front of your face on campus. People died in crashes on I-5 when suddenly enveloped in smoke.

It was very troublesome. It's less so now, but there's absolutely no need for the practice...which is why most farmers have had no problem stopping it.

Thousands of tourists come to Oregon in the late summer, travel through the Willamette Valley, get caught in clouds of field burning smoke and never come back. This is good for the economy?